Therapy
by worldtravellingfly
Summary: Franzi just wanted to enjoy her time off, okay. Drink some tea, read a few nice books. And then SHIELD (metaphorically) knocks on her door. Meanwhile, Bucky Barnes is regaining some control.
1. The Other Awakens

No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

Another story? Another Self-Insert? Why, you ask.

Why not?

* * *

-1-

* * *

The Asset froze as The Other commanded it to. Something was important. Had caught their attention.

At first, they thought it might have been a smell. Or a noise.

But then their wandering eyes lit upon a figure half-hidden in the shadows. She was sitting in the corner of a cafe, reading a book, and sipping some tea occasionally.

They _knew_ her.

She was tall, taller than most women they could remember, with short, messy hair, and a pair of designer glasses perched on her nose. (How they knew that, they weren't sure. Must have been important for some sort of mission.)

They _knew_ her.

By all appearances, they continued their surveillance, staking out the site of yet another murder mission.

Their handler must never know.

The Asset allowed the Other more freedom, seeking an explanation for who this woman was. She did not seem to be particularly important, nor much of a threat.

She was somewhat trained, but the muscles she had were from swimming to the almost certain exclusion of all else. She had not the musculature of an operative, much less a handler. There were scars, but nothing that hinted at combat. Not even an accident.

The glasses alone were a risk to herself.

Nevertheless, they could hardly steer their attention away from her.

 _They knew her_.

And perhaps the Asset would have performed as well as usual the next day, would have added yet another name to the growing list of people they had killed in the name of HYDRA and a new world of peace – which the Other inwardly scoffed at – if they had not noticed the woman.

But they did. And that changed _everything_.


	2. Call And Tea

-2-

* * *

 _A few weeks later_

* * *

Franzi blinked as her mobile vibrated.

 _Unknown caller._

She decided to pick it up. Could be important after all. (Could be her _uncle_ too.)

"Yes?"

"Miss Assman?" A bland voice asked.

"It's _Aßmann_ ," Franzi muttered before she could stop herself. "But I assume I'm the person you're after. What can I do for you?"

The person on the other end continued as if she hadn't said anything.

"We have a few questions regarding a - situation. Is there a time or place you can agree to meet at?"

"No."

A beat of silence.

Franzi took a sip of her tea.

"Pardon?"

The guy sounded mildly confused. Apparently he wasn't used to being straight off told no.

Probably an American.

"I don't know who you are. Or why you'd want to meet me. So, no."

"I'm sorry, this is Phil Coulson of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. And we have some questions regarding a highly sensitive case."

Franzi could not stop herself from rolling her eyes.

"Since I'm assuming you won't leave me alone until you have your answers - which, for the record, I'm not sure I can actually provide - you may meet me in the Café Müller by the Alster. Tomorrow, 2 pm, or 14 o'clock, my time."

See, she could cooperate. The ball was squarely in their half of the field now. Or however that saying went.

(She knew exactly how it went, but couldn't be bothered at the moment.)

She also couldn't be bothered as to how they'd make it there on time. Not her problem.

Coulson or whoever he was confirmed the time and place and then ended the call.

If she had to pay extra for international calls, Franzi would probably kill someone. It wasn't the money, just the principle of the matter.

Well.

She finished loading the dish washer, watered her plants, and wondered what - and why - they wanted from her.


	3. Coulson vs Franzi

No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

-3-

* * *

The following morning, Franzi dressed in a fitted grey suit, burgundy oxfords, and generally tried her best to evoke the seemingly effortless coolness of Marlene Dietrich.

She left her apartment half an hour before the meeting time, walking to the cafe at a leisurely pace. It wasn't far after all.

The sun was shining and there were a lot of people about, locals and tourists alike.

She wouldn't vanish without a trace. Hopefully.

The cafe was almost entirely filled to capacity, but Franzi managed to grab an unoccupied table.

Outside.

Sipping on her chai latte, she watched the people around her from behind her favorite sunglasses. (Perched on her nose, where they belonged.)

Exactly at two, on the dot, a man sat down at her table, on the other side.

He was like any average office worker: a little pudgy in the middle, with thinning blond hair that looked to also grey. Deep wrinkles, for his guesstimated age, had dug in between his eyebrows, and there were no laugh lines around his mouth.

"Miss Aßmann?"

He took care to pronounce her name right. _Good_.

"Yes. I assume you're from that unspeakably complicated agency?"

He offered her his badge.

It looked real enough, as far as she could tell. Which. Franzi had never seen any official badge before, outside of television and movies.

According to the attached ID, his name was really Coulson.

"Agent Coulson, I am not sure what exactly an American government organization would want from me."

The man didn't so much as blink.

"You might be in danger. There has been an incident."

Her left eyebrow rose under its own volition.

"You mean that explosion, in the port? What has that to do with _me_?"

Coulson sighed.

"We have reason to believe that the same person who set that explosion might be coming after you as well."

Franzi snorted. "Why? What reason could there possibly be?"

"We have surveillance footage of that person watching you. Have you ever been involved in any kind of questionable work? Have you been abroad?"

"We're in Europe. Of course I have been abroad. I travel a lot. You might wish to narrow it down. And no, for your information, I have not been involved in 'questionable work' before. This meeting is the most questionable thing I've ever agreed to do."

"Have you been to Eastern European countries, such as Lithuania? Russia?"

Franzi sighed.

"I've been to Russia, St. Petersburg to be exact. It was a two day trip, to see the city. My grandmother always wanted to go, so I went to honor her memory."

Coulson didn't look wholly convinced.

Obviously, familial love and connections were lost on him. What had she been expecting?

"Have you been to the States recently? Specifically the New York and D.C. area?"

She snorted. "Not to D. C., no. I've been to New York several times. Try to go once a year. I have - family there."

Coulson sat up even straighter. "Family?"

"Yeah," she said, cursing herself. "I visit their graves to make sure everything is well taken care of."

He blinked. Again.

"I don't have any living relatives."

Well. Blatant lie that. She did have blood family out there, but they wouldn't recognize her and she refused to recognize _them_. It was mutually beneficent. (Well, there was one exception. Because there always was. Not that this Coulson character needed to know the inner workings of their family feuds.)

The friendships she still had were more important to her anyway.

"Do you know that you look remarkably like your grandmother, Miss Aßmann?"

Her grandmother, eh?

"I do?"

"Yes. You look like a mirror image of herself. Before that unfortunate car accident in '61."

Franzi leaned forward, frowning at the man.

"Are you _threatening_ me?" She asked coolly.

"No, just pointing out something that will have drawn this unwanted attention to you in the first place."

Yeah, right.

"You still haven't mentioned what that actually _means_."

And she would leave soon if he didn't get to the point in the next five minutes. She'd had enough and her chai latte was already paid for.

"We have reason to believe that there is someone out there who was intimately familiar with your family and might be responsible for that - accident. If that is the case, which we believe, you are in incredible danger."

Franzi sighed, eyes closed for a short moment.

"And this is where you tell me that you have a safe place for me to stay? Where I can cower away? Witness protection, maybe?"

A new man sat down at the table.

He was - or appeared, she'd know all about _appearances_ \- younger than Coulson.

"We do," the man said.

She'd recognize him, despite the baseball cap and hoodie, sunglasses or not.

"Dr. Stark."

"Franziska Aßmann, I love your plays and movies."

"Stark," Coulson interjected, warning clear in his tone.

Franzi decided to ignore him. "Thank you. Why are you here?"

"Because Coulson isn't managing you - record that in the calendar - and there's people who have placed high stakes on you surviving this. It's not your fault you're in this mess, but you're in it anyway. Can you arrange to pack for at least two weeks and come with us?"

She considered them both.

They sounded serious enough. This must not be a prank then.

"Very well. And once I arrive wherever you plan on stashing me, you will tell me what exactly is going on."

Stark nodded.

"Good. I am assuming that you'll follow me home either way, so come on. It's not far from here."


	4. Franzi Is Not Amused (&Potentially Dead)

No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

*rubs hands* I'm curious what you think about this chapter!

* * *

 **Warnings:** someone has a panic attack, torture mention, brainwashing mention,

* * *

-4-

* * *

Franzi packed up everything of value to her, sent a text to her neighbor that she would be on a spontaneous vacation and asked that they check on her plants and forward her the mail as usual, all the while trying to push away a sense of foreboding.

They flew to New York in one of Stark's private jets.

Coulson did not come along.

She did not know why, but she didn't care enough to ask. His reasons were his own.

Stark mostly communed with his electronics, so Franzi busied herself with her own laptop and phone.

They arrived in a rather _private_ area in the countryside. There was only a large, ultramodern complex. With a landing strip for the freaking jet of course.

Anna texted her: _hope you're not being kidnapped. Text me when you know what the fuck is going on._

Franzi promised to do so. Then she slipped her phone into her pocket.

Stark led the way inside, mentioning this room or that one.

However, not far into the complex, they were greeted by a welcoming committee.

Rather abruptly, Stark stopped.

"This is Steve Rogers," he mentioned, waving to the guy. (Who really didn't need an introduction.)

He was hardly easy to overlook; tall, packed with muscles, and exuding a certain excited energy.

Also dressing like a 90 year old grandpa.

She _knew_ him. Now, to show that she recognized him or not?

"Good morning," the man said, eyes fixated on her. Taking her in, from head to toe.

"Good morning," Franzi replied. She offered him her hand to shake. "I'm Franzi Aßmann."

He blinked, blinked again, then took her hand.

"It's nice to meet you."

Stark rolled his eyes, but it had a good-naturedness about it. "Yes, yes. Now, as to why we brought you here."

He turned around, motioning to a previously clear wall of glass.

A bunch of things appeared as if on a huge screen, but most important was the video feed in the center.

It had been filmed several weeks before - she'd been to one of her favorite cafes in the Portuguese Quarter with a new book. (Anna wrote the best novels.) She remembered because the book had just arrived in the mail that morning.

Frowning, she looked closer.

Stark helpfully enlarged a section in the corner.

At first there was only some part of someone's t-shirt, of the sleeve of their leather jacket, but they shifted a bit.

Then, for some unknown reason, they stared straight into the camera.

They _must_ have known where it was.

"Pause this! Can you enlarge that part please?"

That sense of foreboding? It had evolved into a loud klaxon going off in the background, albeit still only in her mind.

This. This _couldn't_ be possible.

Stark refrained from saying anything, just doing as she'd asked him to.

Franzi swallowed, knees growing weak. She grabbed the first thing she could get a hold of - a chair, thank the stars - and swallowed. One hand covering her mouth.

Tears were welling up behind her eyelids.

This could not be possible. _How_ was this possible?

She woodenly accepted the handkerchief someone offered her.

Must have been Rogers, because it was fabric. Clearly made for a man, judging by the lack of flower embroidery.

"I take it that you know who this is?" Stark asked, stopping the video feed.

Oh gods.

Franzi closed her eyes, fighting down the bile rising in her throat. Oh _gods_.

Rogers pushed over a trash can for her, possibly recognizing the signs.

Tears streamed down her face, unacknowledged.

There was nothing she could do to stem the emptying of her stomach, except to ride it out.

Humiliated, she accepted the glass of water Stark offered her.

Only sympathy and understanding shone in his eyes.

"Are you feeling better?" He asked, possibly an eternity later.

She took a deep breath, heart still beating wildly.

"Yeah," Franzi croaked out. "Let's get this over with."

Both of the men present nodded.

"So, you know who this is."

She nodded. "That," she motioned to the still of her husband's face, "is James Buchanan Barnes. There's no question about it."

Stark and Rogers exchanged a quick glance.

"How do you know that? I mean he does look spry for his age, but you are much too young to know him. Is he your grandfather?"

Her eyes closed, and she took a sip of the water. What to do? What to say...

Then, deciding to Hell with this, she grinned.

Gods, Anna and Leonie would kill her for this. So dead.

"Not - exactly."

Stark tilted his head, giving her his full attention.

Rogers shuffled a bit in the background.

"What do you mean?"

A small smirk began to stretch her lips.

"Well. If you think _he_ looks good for his age," she nodded at the picture of Bucky, "then what would you say about _me_?"


End file.
